1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and a method of image processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus represented by a Multifunction Peripheral (MFP) is configured to have plural electric power modes such as an operating mode or an electric power saving mode in order to lower electric power consumption when not actually being operated, and appropriately transition between the modes. Generally, the electric power saving mode includes a mode in which a network response is possible and capable of immediately returning to the operating mode (hereinafter, referred to as an “energy saving standby mode”), and a mode in which almost all of the functions including the network response are terminated to further decrease the electric power consumption (hereinafter, referred to as an “off mode”).
Currently, in an office or the like where plural of the image forming apparatuses are placed, all of the apparatuses placed in the office or the like are at the energy saving standby mode at business hours so that the total electric power consumption becomes high.
In order to reduce the total electric power consumption of the image forming apparatuses, there is a method of dividing the apparatuses connected to a network into a main apparatus and a slave apparatus where the main apparatus is set at the energy saving standby mode in which the network response is possible and the slave apparatus is set at the off mode. Meanwhile, the image forming apparatus set as the main apparatus performs the network response instead of the image forming apparatus set as the slave apparatus. Patent Document 1 discloses a method of reducing the electric power consumption of the entirety of the system by transitioning the current slave apparatus to be the main apparatus and the current main apparatus to be the slave apparatus when a returning factor to the operating mode (print request or the like, for example) for the current slave apparatus is detected.
However, according to the conventional method, the main apparatus and the slave apparatus are exchanged by a trigger (the returning factor) caused for the slave apparatus. Thus, when the current slave apparatus (an apparatus B) detects the returning factor while the current main apparatus (the apparatus A) is performing a job for which a long period is necessary to complete, the apparatus B transitions to be the main apparatus and the apparatus A transitions to be the slave apparatus. Then, when the apparatus B functioning as the main apparatus completes the job, the apparatus B becomes the energy saving standby mode while the apparatus A returns to the operating mode. As a result, in the system including the apparatus A and the apparatus B, the apparatus A is at the operating mode while the apparatus B is at the energy saving standby mode. This means excessive electric power is consumed.
Patent Document 2 discloses an image forming system in which the electric power consumption of the entirety of the system is calculated when an electric power status of each of image forming apparatuses is changed to determine an apparatus to function as the main apparatus where a power supply to an image forming unit is terminated when being at the operating mode as the main apparatus and a power supply to the image forming unit and a network control unit is terminated when being at the operating mode as the slave apparatus. However, this determination is performed regardless of the job performing statuses so that there may still be unnecessary electric power consumption.